DESCRIPTION (provided by the application): Introduction. The proposed Health Services Research Fellowship will provide both didactic and practical training in health services research for both M.D. and Ph.D. post-doctoral fellows. The faculty, both M.D. and Ph.D. investigators, have experience in clinical epidemiology, health services research trials, biostatistics, decision analysis, technology assessment, ethics, translational research, and social psychology. They have applied these diverse methods to improving health care delivery in both acute and chronic disease models, in underserved populations, and in areas of interest to AHRQ. Objectives. The objectives of this proposal are to make fellows into excellent health services researchers by 1) offering a didactic curriculum that will teach fellows the fundamental skills required to perform clinical research; and 2) providing the time and outstanding mentorship fellows need to develop their own research ideas and complete their own research projects. Methods. Each fellow makes a minimum 85% time commitment to didactic clinical research training and mentored health services research. The didactic curriculum has core courses in research design, basic statistical analysis, research management, advanced (multivariable) statistical analysis, and research ethics. Fellows select a research mentor early in the first year of the two-year fellowship and plan with that mentor a health services research project of their own devising. The program's philosophy is that research skills are best learned by carrying an idea from inception to publication rather than primarily helping experienced researchers on existing projects. Therefore, fellows are required to develop their own ideas rather than only assuming a role in established studies. At the end of two years, fellows are expected to have two manuscripts prepared for submission and have a research idea that is within a few months of being fully enough developed that it can be submitted as a research proposal for funding.